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Onion Vinegar (1 quart of cider vinegar large)
1 quart of cider vinegar, 2 large Spanish onions or 4 ordi- 2 teaspoonfuls of white sugar, nary white onions, 1 teaspoonful of salt.
Peel and grate the onions, mix with them the salt and sugar. Let it stand two hours and add the vinegar. Turn into bottles and shake every day for two weeks. Strain through cheese-cloth, bottle and cork.
This may be used for salads or may be added to French dressing instead of plain vinegar, and may be used in stews or other dishes where a very delicate onion flavor is desired.
A cold infusion rather than a cooked preserve: the onions never see heat, and the vinegar does all the work. A few points on proportions and keeping.
- The quantities, untangledThe original's two-column layout has run together. It is 1 quart (4 cups) cider vinegar, 2 large Spanish onions or 4 ordinary white onions, 2 teaspoons white sugar, 1 teaspoon salt.
- Onion sizeThe recipe counts onions rather than weighing them. A large Spanish onion is generally reckoned at somewhere around 12 oz to 1 lb and an ordinary white onion at half that, which puts the intended total in the region of 1 1/2 to 2 lb. Err on the low side: the more onion juice released, the more the vinegar is diluted.
- GratingA box grater gives the wet pulp the recipe wants. A food processor works but tends to produce foam and a coarser mash; pulse rather than run it, and expect a cloudier finished vinegar.
- The two-hour standSalt and sugar draw juice out of the pulp by osmosis, so the vinegar is added to a slurry that has already given up a good deal of onion liquor. That is the point of the wait.
- Acidity and safetyUse commercial cider vinegar labelled 5% acidity, not an unlabelled artisan or homemade vinegar of unknown strength. The onion juice dilutes what you start with, and the acid is the only thing keeping the jar in order for two weeks at room temperature.
- VesselGlass or glazed stoneware with a non-metallic lid. Vinegar attacks bare metal and any aluminium or unlined tinware will taint the batch. Keep it out of direct sun while it steeps.
- StrainingCheesecloth alone leaves a haze. Line the sieve with two layers and let it drip rather than squeezing; a second pass through a coffee filter gives a clear bottle, though it is slow.
- Yield and keepingExpect somewhat less than the quart you started with, since the pulp holds back liquid. Refrigerate the strained vinegar and use it within a few months, and discard it if it turns cloudy or develops a slick or film.
- Using itRoughly a tablespoon replaces a tablespoon of plain vinegar in a French dressing. In stews it goes in near the end, since long simmering blows off the volatile onion compounds that are the whole point.
Flavoured vinegars were a standing item in Anglo-American kitchens well before bottled condiments were cheap: tarragon, celery, horseradish, chilli and shallot vinegars all appear through the nineteenth century as a way of keeping a seasoning on hand out of season. Onion vinegar belongs to the same family, and its virtue was practical rather than fashionable. Raw grated onion in a salad is assertive and does not keep; the vinegar carries the flavour without the texture, and a dressing made with it tastes of onion without anyone having chopped one. How to Cook Vegetables was published under the name Olive Green, generally identified as a pen name of the novelist Myrtle Reed, as part of a series of single-subject cookbooks issued in the first decade of the twentieth century. The series' habit of running ingredients in two narrow columns is what has garbled the quantity list here, a printing convention that rarely survives transcription intact.